Iran Viewpoint: New IAEA Report Or New Policy? – OpEd

By Abolqasem Qasemzadeh

When Mr. Yukiya Amano was appointed as new director general of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with direct support of the United States and its European allies, many analysts opined that IAEA will soon change from a legal organization to a political one to allow the United States to take political advantage of this international body. Amano has obtained his bachelor’s degree in law from University of Tokyo. He has been working on unconventional weapons and nuclear bombs for years and got close to Washington under the Obama Administration. If not a lover of the United States, Amano, at least, is very infatuated with the American culture. He had said in an interview many years ago that he was from Japan and as a Japanese who had witnessed catastrophic aftermath of the use of nuclear bomb, would do his best to prevent proliferation of unconventional (chemical and microbial) as well as nuclear weapons. However, after taking charge of IAEA a few years ago, Amano has never bothered to protest to Israel for its possession of unconventional weapons which include, among others, more than 200 nuclear warheads. His excuse is that Israel is not a member of IAEA and has not even acceded to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) either.

Only a few days after the beginning of the new war of nerves by the United States and its European allies over Amano’s report on Iran’s nuclear case, the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, took part in an interview with American and European TV channels to praise Amano for his valor and to call him worth of the post he held!

This introduction means to shed more light on the current reality and nature of IAEA. Under the management of an American lover Japanese diplomat, Yukiya Amano, the organization has swerved from its natural legal course and has turned into a political tool to serve political ends of the United States and its European allies. Therefore, Iran needs to define a new diplomacy to regulate its relations with IAEA under management of Amano who is at the service of the West’s political goals. Many analysts maintain that the policy of unbridled and unconditional cooperation with IAEA should change. We need to review our country’s membership in IAEA as well as our commitment to NPT. If we seek a Middle East free from unconventional, including nuclear weapons, we should not remain indifferent to Israel which still refuses to become a member of IAEA through all-out support of the United States and some European countries. We must not be the sole country in the region which is both member of IAEA and a signatory to NPT.

Mr. Amano took a trip to Washington a few weeks ago to confer with the US President Barack Obama. The result of the meeting was continuation of the age-old propaganda and psychological war against Iran in the form of his new report which claims Iran has diverted from its nuclear commitments toward manufacturing unconventional weapons and nuclear warheads. A new method was used here. Before Amano’s report was officially released, a huge wave of psychological and propaganda war was launched against Iran. While encouraging Amano to take Iran to task in his new report, they also enumerated possible punishments which would be considered by the United States and Israel as well as their European allies, UK, Germany, and France. The Israeli regime is currently at its worst in economic and social terms. Benjamin Netanyahu has forged a fragile coalition government and is suffering from increasing international isolation as a result of the recent recognition of the independent Palestinian state. Therefore, it has dictated a new plot to Americans according to which terrorism and the nuclear program will be used as two wings of a new scenario which aims to incriminate Iran.

They first leveled charges about Iran’s complicity in an assassination plot targeting the Saudi ambassador to the United States which also aimed to blow up Israel’s embassy in Washington. Then they released various news analyses on Amano’s new report which had not been published then. They alleged that they had obtained tens of photos from satellite sources and from personal laptops of Iranian experts who were involved in designing a nuclear warhead for the country. It would have been quite bizarre if Iran had actually tested nuclear weapons in a place visible to Western satellites which in turn reported the development to Mr. Amano! Through the new two-faced scenario of psychological and journalistic war, they have been trying to put Iran at the center of international terrorism (by implicating the country in the assassination plot of the Saudi ambassador in Washington) while charging the country with conducting a covert military nuclear program through Amano’s new report.

On the sidelines, they published reports on frequent meetings between British and Israeli military officials as well as between Israeli officials and officials of the US Defense Department, Pentagon, about an alleged missile attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. During his European visit to take part in G-20 Summit whose main agenda was the ongoing financial crisis in Europe, Obama appeared on TV screens along with his French counterpart, Nicolai Sarkozy. He said that he and Sarkozy had reached an agreement to intensify international sanctions against Iran. European press reported that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been warning American and European statesmen that Iran was the actual winner of popular uprisings in the Middle East. The Middle East region has changed and through that change, Iran has emerged as the main winner. The “alarm” was rung by Netanyahu for the Western leaders to galvanize them into action. Europe, however, is engulfed by an economic and social crisis. In the United States, people are shouting slogans against the ruling “one percent” while American families are suffering from staggering unemployment and stagflation. Will the West be able to launch a new war which may cause the heart of the world’s energy production to stop beating?

Through such analyses, political and independent European writers are warning their governments against falling in Israel’s trap. Certain French politicians, including the country’s foreign minister Alain Juppe, have been trying to modify radical political positions of the French president against Iran. The French foreign minister has warned that a march toward war would cause a great explosion in the Middle East which will destroy everything. The British analysts, likewise, have addressed their country’s statesmen telling them to avoid of repeating failed policies of the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in the form of blindfolded pursuit of US policies. The Middle East is not a good place for trial and error and Iran cannot be subdued by the language of force, they say.

At the end of his first term in office, Obama is getting prepared to run for president again and win another term. Election hustings have already got underway in the United States. Both Democrats and Republicans have not much to say about economic and social crisis in the country. So, they have riveted their eyes on foreign policy. It is usual for US presidential hopefuls to use the foreign policy leverage in time of election campaigns. They have adopted Amano’s new report as their “new policy” to prove their power. Israel’s scenario which pivots around two main axes of terrorism and Iran’s nuclear program has been upheld by Obama and his European allies. The ongoing psychological and journalistic war is sure to expand in the coming months. Everybody, however, knows that such a war of nerves may easily backfire and entails risks. If it gets out of hand and the ensuing propaganda crisis reaches a flashpoint, the subsequent conflagration will easily engulf the whole Middle East and the Persian Gulf as the beating heart of the world’s energy resources. Some Arab neighbors of Iran have easily fallen in the trap. Arab media are echoing US and Israeli allegations and those of their European allies by incessantly beating on the war drums. Meanwhile, the public opinion in most Arab countries which are simmering with religious and nationalistic uprisings abhors the US and Israel. At the same time, we have not been especially active in our regional diplomacy. Taking rapid steps to establish bilateral and multilateral contacts with regional states is the current need of our diplomacy. We must have suitable plans and work patiently. Strengthening national unity and taking necessary steps to foil Zionist plots in a way that would be costly to Western countries will require a consolidated action on the basis of national and religious unity. This is the same unity which has been sweeping through the Middle East and has encouraged Muslim nations to rise against the domination of the arrogant West and the racist Israel.

On the other hand, it now seems that the governments of Russia, China, and to some extent, Japan, are well aware of dangerous consequences of the psychological war which has been waged by the United States and its European allies against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Russia and China see the current international conditions as dangerous. Therefore, if our diplomatic apparatus started more active interaction with these countries, the United States would have difficulty for pushing ahead with its bullying policies. To achieve this goal, we need wise management under extremely sensitive conditions which surround us.

Source: Ettelaat Newspaper
http://www.ettelaat.com/
Translated By: Iran Review